National Seminar on "Communities of Women" to be organized by the WSRC, Gauhati University

January 2009

The WSRC proposes to hold an interdisciplinary seminar on the theme of “Communities of Women” in January 3-4, 2009. Women working together - or just being together - the notion of a sisterhood - has been an important area of women’s studies, exemplified as much in radical feminist movements like the Black and increasingly, the Indian, as in mainstream Anglo-American and French feminist thinking. Associated with the idea of sisterhood has also been the notion of non-threatening, participatory engagements in global, national, regional and individual situations. This has been the source of alternative notions of empowerment, of women’s individual and collective identity and of collective action.

Religious and cultural communities of women have emerged especially in societies like ours in India where the division of the sexes and the strong patriarchal grip in which social institutions are caught, have pushed women into groupings which have frequently been their only source of strength. At the same time such communities have in turn been run on the lines of other social institutions and have contained the same authority/power structures, resulting in the replication of repressive situations for the women who are their members.

This Seminar offers an opportunity to explore the positive and negative aspects of women’s communities in the Northeast of India. It looks at the idea of women’s cooperation through different disciplines that have addressed the ‘woman question’ in specific ways. It seeks to explore how the perspective of the disciplines may be harnessed in addressing the notion of communities of women in the unique societies of the North-Eastern region – creating occasions to study the nature of women’s lives, their traditional social, political and economic roles, and the potential for extension and reinvention of these roles, instances of women grouping together for action, women’s collective response to social evils as well as the problem of insurgencies and state reprisals. The Seminar expects to throw up questions about the social perception and response to women grouping, the psychological impact of isolation versus sisterhood in threatening and depressive situations, and the building of intercommunity, interstate connections. Within these broad premises, the Seminar looks forward to theoretical and practical-experiential papers on the following themes:

• Women’s culture
• Women and Worship
• Networks of Women, women’s social organizations and institutions and NGOs
• Women and political movements
• Representations of women in the print and visual media
• Women’s education in Assam
• Women and Health /Health awareness
• Insurgencies and women

Papers should ideally be based on some research and field work, preferably have a strong conceptual basis in the issue of women’s community and aim at offering a critique of society as well as a positive image for the future. Since this is an interdisciplinary seminar, a clear articulation of disciplinary context i.e. how has a discipline addressed the question of ‘communities of women’ – for example in questions like how does cooperation among women work in economics, do women use a special and different language when communicating among themselves, how do literary representations show women together, how have women collaborated in historical events etc. - is expected.

Full paper not exceeding 4000 words along with a 250-300 word abstract is to be submitted by 30 October 2008 (at the address given below).The decision about acceptance of papers will be communicated by 15 November, 2008.The paper should also accompany the author’s full address , telephone number, fax, email etc. Registration fee of Rs.300 may be sent by cheque/DD in favour of Women’s Studies Research Centre, Gauhati University payable at SBI, GU branch.

All correspondence regarding the seminar to be addressed to either of the following addresses